Cheneys: Obama should apologize

Former Vice President Dick Cheney praised the Obama administration Sunday for ordering the drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, calling it “a very good strike” and “justified.”

But Cheney and his daughter Liz, who appeared together on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said President Barack Obama owes the Bush administration an apology.

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They said the killing of an American citizen without due process calls into question the president’s past criticisms of the Bush administration for using enhanced interrogation techniques.

“The thing I am waiting for is for the administration to go back and correct something they said two years ago, when they criticized us for quote, overreacting, to the events of [Sept. 11],” Dick Cheney said. “They in effect said we had walked away from our ideals, taking policy contrary to our ideals when we had enhanced interrogation techniques. They have clearly moved in the direction of taking robust action when they feel it is justified. In this case, it was. They need to go back and reconsider what the president said in Cairo.”

“He said in his Cairo speech [in 2009] for example that he banned torture,” Dick Cheney said. “We were never torturing anyone in the first place. He said we walked away from our basic fundamental ideals. That simply wasn’t the case. What he said then was inaccurate especially now in light of what they are doing with policy.”

Liz Cheney added, “He slandered the nation, and I think he owes an apology to the American people. Those are the policies that kept us safe.”

But Dick Cheney said Obama was justified in ordering such an attack, even when it involves an American citizen.

“The president has all the authority he needs to order this kind of strike,” Cheney said. “It’s the difference between a law enforcement action and a war. We’re in a war.”

Liz Cheney also praised the administration but leveled similar criticism of the president’s Cairo speech.

“What concerns me is the damage this president has done,” Liz Cheney said. “The extent to which when the president of the United States goes on on foreign soil saying the United States has abandoned American values … when he does that, he does real damage to our standing in the world.”

On another issue, Cheney and his daughter said they agree with the repeal of the military’s ban against gays from serving openly in the military.